PARKWAYS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE THE CAPPER-CRAMTON ACT OF 1930 A TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE OF PARKWAY DESIGN MORE THAN A ROADWAY Driving George Washington Memorial Parkway from end to By the 1920s, Great Falls and the Potomac Palisades were Like its predecessor, George Washington Memorial Parkway George Washington Memorial Parkway is more than just an end provides a thorough lesson in twentieth-century scenic threatened not just by quarrying, but by a private power was heralded as a model for state-of-the-art parkway design. attractive roadway. The original commemorative function EUKGU'WATS IN ilAliiVlOilY highway design. Beginning at Mount Vernon, one company's plans to build hydroelectric dams above and While Mount Vernon Memorial Highway was built for remains strong, as civic and military memorials continue to progresses from a narrow, winding, largely undivided below the falls. To prevent this danger, conservationists, motorists traveling at 35-45 mph, postwar parkway designers be added to the parkway landscape. These range from concrete roadway to the wider traffic lanes, more generous historical associations, and civic groups worked with calculated for speeds of 50-60 mph. traditional bronze statues such as "Iwo Jima" and the curves, and continuous medians near National Airport. Representative Louis C. Cramton and Senator Arthur Capper monuments lining the approach to Arlington Cemetery to North of Washington, the motorist encounters the sweeping to secure passage of a bill authorizing the creation of George abstract modernist sculptures and groves of memorial trees. curves, widely separated road alignments, and soaring steel Washington Memorial Parkway as an elongated regional The parkway also offers a variety of recreational and concrete bridges of postwar parkway construction. park stretching along both sides of the Potomac River opportunities. Its picnic areas and marinas continue to be George Washington Crossing the Potomac on the Capital Beltway to reach Clara between Great Falls and Mount Vernon. enormously popular with tourists and locals alike. A multi- Barton Parkway provides a stark reminder of the usual Parkway Construction near Key Bridge, 1949 (DCL) President Eisenhower opening parkway to Langley, 1959 (DCL) use trail was built between Washington and Mount Vernon course of late-twentieth century American highway Postcard view of Great Falls, (ca. 1900) A parkway drive similar to Mount Vernon Memorial in the 1970s and extended north to Rosslyn in the 1980s. Memorial Parkway Reconstruction near Spout Run, 1993 (HAER/Davis) development and underscores the skill and foresight of the Highway would follow the Maryland shoreline. Existing GEORGE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL PARKWAY The northern portions of George Washington Memorial As a wildlife refuge, the parkway serves as a permanent or Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C. parkway's original designers. GREAT FALLS AND THE POTOMAC PALISADES roads would be used on most of the Virginia side to avoid Parkway were mostly built in the 1950s-1960s. The longest temporary home to a wide variety birds and mammals. The costly construction along the Palisades. A proposed bridge George Washington Memorial Parkway was an ambitious CHANGE AND CONTINUITY parkway also preserves many important historical features, Great Falls has been a popular tourist destination since section, between Spout Run and Langley, Virginia, was at Great Falls and a ferry between Fort Washington and Fort undertaking. Along with the technical difficulties involved including Washington's Patowmack Canal, Arlington House George Washington's time. Along with the dramatic natural officially opened by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1959. George Washington Memorial Parkway retains its original Hunt would allow motorists to make a grand loop tour of the in constructing roadways along the rugged banks of the and the remains of several Civil War forts. scenery, the Patowmack Canal, which Washington built character to a considerable degree, but it has undergone a region's natural and historic features. This aspect of the plan Potomac, the project required close cooperation between During the 1930s, parkways were seen as ideal ways to around the falls in the 1790s, was considered an engineering number of changes to accommodate shifting public demands was eventually shelved, but new bridge-building technologies federal, state, and local agencies. The National Park Service combine recreational development, scenic preservation, and marvel, attracting visitors from around the world. and growing traffic burdens. enabled parkway designers to route the parkway along the assumed overall responsibility, with the BPR again lending traffic relief. By the 1960s, however, high-speed motorways Washington's canal was short-lived, but its successor, the Virginia palisades. its road-building expertise. Funding problems plagued the were generally regarded as incompatible with natural Donaldson Run Bridge, 1994 (HABS/Boucher) The construction of National Airport required a major Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, provided nineteenth-century parkway throughout its development, which continued in fits resource protection. Preservationists played an important relocation of the original Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, excursionists with a popular and relaxing method of reaching and starts for almost forty years. role in preventing the parkway's roads from extending all the Postwar sections have longer, more sweeping curves, which passed near the site of today's Metro station. The the falls and enjoying the surrounding woodlands. way north to Great Falls, as originally planned. While the By the late 1940s, the parkway had only been extended as continuous safety medians, and soaring concrete bridges section between the airport and 1-395 was later expanded to Construction of electric trolley lines to Great Falls and Glen National Park Service acquired most of the Potomac far north as Spout Run. An extra arch was added to Key spanning the steep ravines of the Potomac Palisades. Access six lanes to accommodate increased traffic. Traffic concerns Echo at the beginning of the twentieth century made the shoreline between Washington and Great Falls, road Bridge to accommodate the parkway drive at Rosslyn. The was even more strictly controlled through cloverleafs and also forced parkway officials to update the circulation falls and the Potomac Palisades even more accessible. construction stopped at the Capital Beltway on the Virginia Spout Run Bridge, completed in 1959 to carry southbound bridges. Variable-width medians and different alignments pattern on Columbia Island and, most recently, to widen the side and just north of the Beltway in Maryland. The Fort traffic on the main parkway, provides a striking example of for north- and southbound traffic allowed designers to fit the parkway between Spout Run and Theodore Roosevelt Unfortunately, the Palisades were also accessible to stone- Navy and Marine Memorial (HAER/Davis) GEORGE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL PARKWAY Washington leg was abandoned for economic and political parkway more closely to the terrain and helped preserve Memorial Bridge. The National Park Service's concern for WASHINGTON RRGION the artistic possibilities of modern concrete bridge design. quarrying operations, which threatened to reduce the FROM MOUNT VKRNON. PAST THK CITY OF WASHINGTON reasons. The final road segment, between Chain Bridge and TO GRKAT PALLS attractive natural scenery. The area north of Key Bridge maintaining the parkway's visual character can be seen in the imposing cliffs to rubble by the end of the nineteenth the Maryland border, was opened in 1970. was considered one of the best examples of postwar hand-laid stone facings on the extensive concrete guard walls century. The 1901 Senate Park Commission urged Congress parkway design. Images of this stretch appeared in required by modern safety regulations. to preserve the Palisades and develop a series of winding numerous highway engineering textbooks. parkways along the banks of the Potomac between Washington and Great Falls. George Washington Memorial Parkway was documented in Senate Park Commission Report (1902) 1993-94 by the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER), a division of the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The project was sponsored by the NPS Park Roads and Parkways Program. Measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written history are available to the public through the HABS/HAER collection at the Library of Congress. George Washington Memorial Parkway Proposal, 1930 (NARA) Spout Run, 1968 (CF'At'Alexander) Clara Barton Parkway, 1993 (HAER/Davis) This leaflet was produced by the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, a division of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, 1946 (NARA) National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, in 1785 1828 1800s 1901 1920s 1930 1940s 1959 1962 1964 1970 1989 conjunction with the National Preservation Institute. George Washington Construction starts on Stone quarried from Senate Park Hydroelectric dams Capper-Cramton Act Parkway constructed Parkway extended to Capital Beltway (I-495) Road on Man/land side Final section of parkway Maryland roadway Text by Timothy Davis forms Patowmack Chesapeake and Ohio Potomac Palisades Commission urges proposed near Great authorizes George past Rosslyn to Spout Langley, Virginia serves as northern reaches current terminus road completed between segment renamed Clara Company to build